Related Projects

Working with Buildings
  • Man from City Hall

    • Boston City Hall becomes a giant character for First Night celebrations

  • LightPlay

    • A project using refracted light and other day/night lighting effects for a new mixed-use building

  • Terpsichore for Kansas City

    • Turning a 1000 car parking garage into a musical instrument in Kansas City, MO

  • The Benefit of Mr. Kite

    • Re-envisioning a walkway in San Diego, CA into a choreographed path of light and color

  • Terullian Mantle

    • A multi-part response to the International Day Parade of New York City’s Public School 89

  • Glove Cycle

    • Gloves go through a life cycle while leading passengers down into a Cambridge subway station

  • Drawn Water

    • A permanent piece at the Cambridge, MA Water Treatment Plant about where water comes from and where it goes

  • 300 Summer Street

    • An artist-owned live/work studio building in Boston’s Fort Point area with recycled steel plate sculpture for the public spaces

  • City at the Falls

    • A terrazzo floor and lighted ceiling brings the river and the city into the Louisville Convention Center

Schools & Libraries
  • Passage

    • A multifaceted project for the new South Mountain Community Library, connecting people through words to the landscape of South Phoenix

  • Portrait Chairs

    • Seats of honor for readers in Norfolk, MA

  • Terullian Mantle

    • A multi-part response to the International Day Parade of New York City’s Public School 89

  • In the Dense Words

    • A book environment for a book distribution company

  • Gateway

    • An oversized table creates a fanciful gateway in a Cambridge middle school

  • The Bay Circuit Trail

    • A community project traversing the “Emerald Necklace” surrounding Boston

  • Light Gate

    • Glass laminated with prismatic film captures the sunset for the Centennial Art Project for Manhattan Beach, CA

  • Connections

    • A seating project connecting with the Stanley Tool Company and Central Connecticut State University

Light, Sound & Peformance
  • Man from City Hall

    • Boston City Hall becomes a giant character for First Night celebrations

  • LightPlay

    • A project using refracted light and other day/night lighting effects for a new mixed-use building

  • Terpsichore for Kansas City

    • Turning a 1000 car parking garage into a musical instrument in Kansas City, MO

  • SunFlowers, An Electric Garden

    • Sculptural solar collectors provide shade and lighting for a bike path

  • Passage

    • A multifaceted project for the new South Mountain Community Library, connecting people through words to the landscape of South Phoenix

  • The Bronx River Golden Ball

    • An annual event in the Bronx and Westchester Co., NY, where the ball focuses diverse communities on the river

  • Light Gate

    • Glass laminated with prismatic film captures the sunset for the Centennial Art Project for Manhattan Beach, CA

  • Submerge

    • Video collaboration by Mags Harries & Catherine Siller for Art on the Marquee at the Boston Convention Center

  • Lucid Moment

    • Bringing together light, liquid, movement, and space

  • Playback

    • Reclaiming a derelict tennis court with sound and nylon straps

  • One Legged Table

    • Bringing communities to the table to discuss global warming

  • The Gallo Wars of Civitella

    • Video work by Mags Harries and Lajos Héder

Arizona
  • Passage

    • A multifaceted project for the new South Mountain Community Library, connecting people through words to the landscape of South Phoenix

  • WaterWorks at Arizona Falls

    • A permanent installation at an old hydropower station

  • The Zanjero’s Line

    • A recreational path along 4 miles of the Highline Canal in South Phoenix, AZ

  • Arbors & Ghost Trees

    • Bus stops and shaded arbors as markers of transformation and memory along a major road in South Phoenix, AZ

  • Wall Cycle to Ocotillo

    • A trail of 20 sculpture sites mitigating between 5 miles of highway and neighborhoods in Phoenix

  • Lucid Moment

    • Bringing together light, liquid, movement, and space

Pillars of Thought

  • Location: Scottsdale Public Library, Sottsdale, AZ (1994)
  • Client: Scottsdale Cultural Council
  • Size: 5 Columns 19’6″, projections 25′
  • Material: Steel, concrete, glass, lighting, motors
  • Budget: $150,000
  • Photo Credits: Beckett Logan

Knowledge & Thought

Set in the main reading room of the Scottsdale Public Library, Pillars of Thought brings together architectural structures and light projections to explore the nature of thought using ancient and modern imagery. The structural brackets on five of the library’s columns are re-designed as giant heads to create a totemic sequence in the center of the library.

Proposal drawing of projections and the five columns

The heads face North, South, East and West.  From each mouth projects an illuminated glass “breath”.  Base plates on the columns are designed as upside-down “diving” heads, transforming the columns into living presences.

Thought Processes

The totemic columns hold lights that project into clerestories.  Projecting through mechanized mobiles, the lights create constantly changing shadow drawings that symbolize different ways of thinking: structured vs.  random; focused vs. divergent; geometrical vs. informal.  These thought patterns move and change slowly, incorporating light reflected from the outside through water and wind driven reflectors that catch the changing sunlight.

Reflections

As library patrons sit reading in the seats below the Pillars, they can observe the subtle shifting of thought patterns by these large beings overhead without being distracted by them.

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